


Curtain Call

by orphan_account



Series: The Last Laugh [2]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Ghoul:re
Genre: Childhood, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Prequel, Sequel, age-wise, but I'm back to ruin lives with more tragedy, but most of the time it is, it's a mix of both, not always in chronological order, you thought The Last Laugh was over
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-14 09:46:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7166207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A set of shorts to go along with the other fic, The Last Laugh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act 1

**Author's Note:**

> One of the reasons this was/will be written is because of my chronic insomnia-- I can't sleep, so I write to help me sleep and pass the time.
> 
> Another of the reasons this was written was because I didn't answer all of the questions asked during the first fic-- so I'm doing that now, in the form of short stories. If you want any questions that are still unanswered to be answered in one of those, or if you want to see a specific short story written, drop a comment and let me know! I'll do my best to make it happen!
> 
> Thanks to Charade (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Charade/pseuds/Charade) who has already left prompts for me to fill!
> 
> Oh, also. On the name...
> 
> I chose _Curtain Call_ because the definition of a curtain call is: the appearance of one or more performers on stage after a performance to acknowledge the audience's applause.
> 
> In essence, _returning to the stage._ I thought it was fitting.
> 
> These aren't written in any particular order. That is to say, they aren't in chronological order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the reasons this was/will be written is because of my chronic insomnia-- I can't sleep, so I write to help me sleep and pass the time.
> 
> Another of the reasons this was written was because I didn't answer all of the questions asked during the first fic-- so I'm doing that now, in the form of short stories. If you want any questions that are still unanswered to be answered in one of those, or if you want to see a specific short story written, drop a comment and let me know! I'll do my best to make it happen!
> 
> Thanks to Charade (http://archiveofourown.org/users/Charade/pseuds/Charade) who has already left prompts for me to fill!
> 
> Oh, also. On the name...
> 
> I chose _Curtain Call_ because the definition of a curtain call is: the appearance of one or more performers on stage after a performance to acknowledge the audience's applause.
> 
> In essence, _returning to the stage._ I thought it was fitting.
> 
> These aren't written in any particular order. That is to say, they aren't in chronological order.

**_"How did Kanou get involved with the Clowns to begin with? How did Hide end up in the custody of Uta and Itori anyway?/Roma and Hide growing up together./How much did Renji know about Hide considering his long standing Friendship with Uta and Itori? That was kind of unclear? Was Yomo a weird uncle to Hide? Or did Hide learn to act like just a kid Itori or Uta was looking after for the day if Renji came around…"_ **

 

The night that changed her life started out absurdly mundane. Simply put, it was due to not much more than coincidence, boredom, and alcohol.

Looking back, she would regret the sheer amount of fermented blood she had consumed previously. And the fact that she had gotten Uta to consume an unsightly amount as well, and the both of them were rather tipsy. She blamed their questionable decisions on their drinking-- because the deal they struck that night was the most questionable and strange that she would ever make, in all of her years as a Clown. Which was saying something, because Itori had made many questionable and strange decisions.

Itori had a fondness for alcohol and entertainment. Also, pretty men, but not much more than that. She loved a good tragedy when one came around, had questionable morals, delighted in causing strangers pain, and perhaps that's why she fit in so well with the Clowns.

She was also very responsible when she wanted to be, like making sure she had enough alcohol in her bar, not accidentally giving human customers alcoholic drinks with real blood when they asked for a Bloody Mary, and making sure she paid all of her bills on time. Ninety percent of the time, however, she was as irresponsible as her heart desired-- which was a lot.

So when she and Uta went out to a Ghoul Restaurant-- Nico was busy with his latest fling, Ganbo was... doing something or other, Itori wasn't very sure about him, and Roma _(the daring little girl)_ was apparently planning on toying with the Doves, despite Nico's cautions that she would end up getting caught one day-- ready for a night of carefree, drunken acts that they would never regret in the morning, she did not expect to be approached by a man with dark hair that was just beginning to show grey at the edges.

Most people steered clear of the Clowns. Most ghouls steered clear of them, lest they end up on the bad list of strangers that need tortured. So while this man, who wore only a simple white mask to cover his eyes _(boring),_ was intriguing, Itori had no interests in him. He smelled like a hospital, and faintly like dead bodies, and hospitals were boring places.

"Hello," The boring man said, offering them a polite bow. Itori dipped her head to him in return, and Uta waved. "I'll assume you're the Information Broker, and then you're No-Face?"

"That's us indeed," Uta said cheerily, from behind his mask. His hair, still dyed a pale, corn-silk blond-- he'd told Itori he was considering to let it grow back in black, but she had suggested dying it pink and he vetoed to leave it blonde-- stuck up behind his mask in tuffs. "And who might you be, mister human?"

_Human? Oh my, my. This did just get a whole lot more interesting._

The man smiled. "I'm Kanou Akihiro. And I've come with a proposition for the both of you."

 

 

* * *

 

 

"You want _us..."_ Itori trailed incredulous. "...to raise your child? Us?"

"Why should we, anyways?" Uta asked, sipping alcohol-laced blood from a fancy wineglass. "Not that it doesn't sound entertaining and all. It's not every day we're approached by a stranger and asked to raise a baby, but it does sound like a hassle. We aren't exactly _parent material."_

"Oh, but my dear ghouls, you are _exactly_ the type of parents I want to raise my experiment," Kanou explained delightedly. He held a glass of alcohol that remained untouched, unlike Itori and Uta's own. "You're both rather strong folks, and you're both living very dangerous, fight-riddled lives-- you, No-Face, control the Fourth Ward, do you not? And that's exactly how I want my experiment raised: always in the midst of a battle. That way, his regeneration will always be improving, and he'll always be getting stronger. The fear of death is an excellent motivator, after all."

"You sound like quite the interesting parent," Itori commended, amused. "Most parents would fear for their child's safety, I think."

"But that's the thing," Kanou said, just as cordially. "Experiment 49 will be perfectly safe with you both. You're both more than adequately strong to protect it from death, and if it's wounds are too serious, I can patch it up. It's the ideal set up."

"Not that raising a test-tube baby doesn't sound interesting, because it does," Uta said, stopping for a moment as he paused to peered over the balcony's edge to watch the Scrapper tear into tonight's meal. "Oh wow, look at that little fellow go. She's got a nice set of knives, doesn't she?"

"And you said _I_ had a short attention span," Itori snickered. "Look at yourself, U-chan."

Uta bopped her on the head half-heartedly, turning back to Kanou.

"Anyways, what's in it for us? Entertainment is always a nice motivator, but not enough for this sort of deal."

"Straight to the point, U-chan," Itori let out a giggle. "Maybe you should slow down with your drinks, after all."

"Not a chance," Uta said cheerfully, sipping at his glass to find his drink gone. Not deterred in the slightest, he reached an arm out and caught some of the blood-splatter from the Scrapper (a dainty little girl, with what appeared to be a giant set of butcher knives, chasing after the meals with a crooked grin) tearing into the appetizer.

"I do have a nice reimbursement fee prepared, of course," Kanou waved a hand. "But I'm sure monetary benefits aren't what your after. I'll pull some strings with a friend of mine, and he'll give you a nice Family Registry that is more than up to the CCG's standards. If you've got any particular demands, let me know, and I'll see if I can arrange it."

"Hmm..." Itori finished her glass, and sat it down with a sigh. Her long, well-kept fingernails made a tinkling sound against the glass. "It sounds interesting enough, I suppose."

"Mmm-hmm!" Uta hummed, and Itori noted that his mask was beginning to slip off. For some strange reason _(she suspected it was the alcohol-- she vowed later to never drink that much in a night again)_ , she found it downright hilarious, and let out a peal of laughter.

"We'll do it, Mister Human!"

 

 

* * *

 

 

Itori came to the next morning with a faint headache and a dry mouth, but otherwise no signs of the hangover she was sure she would have had, if she was human. She was stretched out over the couch of Uta's apartment in the Fourth Ward, and Uta was napping, curled up like a cat and partially concealed by a white sheet, on top of one of the glass cases his precious masks were placed in. On closer inspection, the sheet had been knotted at his throat so that it hung like a cape from his shoulders. Itori vaguely remembered doing that-- she thought.

Somebody was knocking at the door. Itori picked up one of her heels, which were strewn near the couch, and threw it at Uta's head, pleased when it startled him enough to knock him off the case and onto the floor in a sprawling heap, tangled in his sheet.

"Wha--"

"Somebody's knocking," Itori said brightly, beaming. "Go answer the door! It isn't polite to keep your neighbors-- or whoever it is-- waiting!"

"I let you sleep here," Uta sniffed, looking wounded. "And you repay me like _this?"_

"I saved you from a Dove with my sexy charm, and you repay me like _this?"_

Uta pouted, his tone falsely whiny. "You're no fun."

"I'm tons of fun," Itori said, with a sharp grin. "I'll go make the coffee if you answer the door. And you know my coffee is better than yours is~."

Uta threw his hands up and walked to the door, shirtless and with wild blonde bedhead, the sheet draped around his shoulders like a cape. When he pulled it open, the woman behind it actually seemed to do a double take.

"...hello. Who might you be?" Uta asked, blinking at the young woman in the nurse's uniform, who held a basket-like thing that Itori didn't recognize in one hand.

"A representative of Doctor Kanou," The nurse said simply, shoving the basket into Uta's hands. "This is the package. The money has already been transferred to the offshore bank account, and the account number and pass-code is on here," She slipped a folded piece of paper into his other hand. "There's basic medical information on the paper with the package. Have a pleasant day. The Doctor wishes you the best of luck."

She turned around with that, and was gone.

Uta sat the basket down on one of the glass cases, sniffing sheet-covered surface curiously.

"It doesn't smell terrible, so I suppose she wasn't dropping off please-stop-partying-so-loud-on-weekdays bribery food," Uta announced, and he lifted the corner of the sheet that was draped over the basket to peer at the mystery basket's contents.

"Oh my. Itori, did you, by chance, order a baby last night?"

"A baby?" She not-so-gently pushed Uta out of the way to remove the sheet, revealing a very small, blanket-wrapped infant, sleeping soundly inside the basket. "I don't think you can _order_  children. It smells nice, though. Do you think it would taste good?"

"Nah. Even _we_  wouldn't eat a _baby,_ silly. They've got too many bones."

Itori's eyes widened as she peered at the infant. "Well, unless your in the mood for cannibalism, we wouldn't be able to eat it anyways." She pointed a finger to the infant, whose eyes had opened. The left eye was a warm, chocolate-brown color, but the right was a kakugan, the black veins stark against pale skin. "Would you look at that! We ordered a one-eye! Even when we're drunk, we've got good taste!"

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Oh, uh-huh. I see," Uta was chatting on the phone to the 'Doctor' mentioned by the nurse who had left the baby, as Itori watched over the infant. The phone number had been on the sheet with the details to an offshore bank account. "Well then, that clears up a lot!"

Itori, who had been listening in on their conversation, had thought that this was perhaps their greatest drunken feat in their entire history of drunken adventures. Which was saying something, considering they'd had quite a lot of drunken adventures, seventy-five percent of which ended in the death of irritating strangers and Doves that tried to ruin their fun, twenty-five perfect of which ended in almost-fatal bloodshed.

"We don't have a receipt, so I guess we can't return it, huh?" Itori mused, watching the swaddled baby, who watched her back in turn with those eerily intelligent, wide, brown _(and black and red)_  eyes. "I think we actually made a _commitment,_ U-chan! Just wait 'till Nico hears about this!"

"We really did make a rather large commitment, didn't we?" Uta pondered, voicing his thoughts. "Maybe we should lay off the alcohol for awhile, after all."

"I am horrified to hear you say that," Itori sniffed. "Who are you, and what have you done with _my_ U-chan?"

Uta thwacked her on the back of the head with his sketchpad, and Itori took the sketchpad and hit him with it.

"U-chan, that's _mean!_ You don't hit women!"

"That's a rather double-standard," Uta said amusedly, ducking out of the way of Itori's attacks. "So I can't hit you but you can hit me? That's-- _ouch!"_

Itori was about to make a satisfied comment, but paused when the infant let out a high-pitched peal of laughter, like the pealing of bells. She and Uta both stared at it _(him, according to the papers tucked into the basket with the infant)_  in mild surprise.

"He likes violence, does he?" Uta asked, though it was more of a statement, nonplussed. 

Itori beamed. "Maybe we don't need a receipt-- it looks like he'll fit right in!"

 

 

* * *

 

 

To Nico and Roma's utter bemusement, that was exactly how it turned out-- the experiment _(Itori and Uta had called it 'Hideyoshi')_  fit into place with them like a puzzle piece would in a puzzle. He needed surprisingly little care-- from what Nico had heard, infants were a wailing, snotty mess for the majority of their young lives that needed to be hovered about and doted on. This one had to be an oddity, and not for any reason that included his species.

He never wailed, the terrible, temper-tantrum wails that deprive parents of sleep in the middle of the night. He cried when he was wet or hungry _(or curious, at first, which made for a lot of quiet tears)_ , and once his needs had been sated, he cried no more. He was a rather serious child at first, but by the first month or so had passed, it was almost as if he had begun to mirror Itori and Uta's mannerisms, becoming a bright, bubbly child, though his eyes always studied everything with that shockingly sharp intelligence.

Roma had expected parenthood to dull the Clown in Itori and Uta, but it seemed far from the truth. Itori and Uta did anything and everything they had before Hide had came along _(though, she hadn't been with them for very long before that, just long enough to gain appraisal as a genuine sadist and to be accepted as one of the Clowns)_ , they simply did it with a child.

When they went out to the Ghoul Restaurant, they brought baby bottles filled with a mix of blood and milk. When Uta went out to settle a spat in the Fourth Ward, he brought along Hide _(an affectionate nickname-- Hideyoshi was a mouthful)_ and entrusted him to the care of one of his gang, and the baby boy would watch, delighted, as his adopted father tore ghouls apart, giving bright peals of laughter at the gore. When Itori made an information deal, she would do it with Hide sitting on the counter of the bar, propped up with a pillow and watching everything with those too-intelligent eyes. When they hunted, which was often an every-other-night occurrence, Hide tagged along in a baby carrier _(Uta and Itori flipped coins to see who would carry him)_.

Roma thought that she would dislike the baby, but as it came to be known, she rather enjoyed his company. She had been the youngest Clown until he had came around _(she was just-turned nine, and had the mentality of a child-like, sadistic serial killer)_ , and now that she didn't have to bear the nickname 'squirt' or 'shorty', she was definitely fond of him. Less time being annoyed by the others teasing her about her age meant more time teasing the Doves.

Before she killed them, anyways. Roma had taken to bringing little Pierrot _(because every Clown needed an alias)_  out with her when she killed, and the boy absolutely loved it. Hearing his laughter added to her own merely made killing the Doves more fun-- they couldn't believe that a little girl _(Roma hated her height-- she looked five-- but she could use it to her advantage)_  with an infant would be dangerous. Oftentimes, she would lure them in with false tears and some sob story or other _("Please! Help! Mommy-- Mommy's hurt!")_  and the foolish Doves would have no idea what hit them until they were already alone with herself and Hide in a dark alley with a rinkaku tentacle through their abdomen and the delicious blood flying through the air.

Babysitting was fun, even if Roma didn't actually get to sit on any children.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Hide was old enough to hunt on his own, he and Roma often sparred, and headed out for a snack afterwards. Most of the time, it was in the underground tunnels that made up the Twenty-Fourth Ward or occasionally on the rooftops, and it was always terribly exciting. Hide was strong in his own right, with his chimera kagune, and Roma was absurdly strong for someone so small and young.

Then again, she was also absurdly sadistic and downright psychotic for someone so small and young, which was the precise reason she had been accepted into the Clowns without issue.

It was one of those nights, and he and Roma sat on the edge of the rooftop, sharing a corpse between the two of them-- they'd hit the jackpot, the corpse was just fatty enough to be easy to eat, and since Hide's permanent front two teeth hadn't grown in yet, it was perfect-- dreaming up horror stories and trying to get a reaction from the other. But neither the six year old Hide nor the fourteen-and-a-half year old Roma was budging.

"And then--" Hide was cut off as the door flew open and Uta, looking mildly irritated but also mildly intrigued.

"After you finish up your snack, head inside, the both of you," Uta muttered. "I've got to go play peacemaker again, and it sounds like it might actually get interesting this time-- and by that, I mean Nico said that it was 'too dangerous for children to go'."

Roma snorted. "Worry-wart. I rip his kidney out, if he'll say it to my face~."

"Again?" Hide asked Uta, ignoring Roma's comment, reaching into his front pocket and drawing out a neon-colored handkerchief, wiping his hands and his face free of blood. After he tucked the cloth neatly back into his pocket, he was on his feet, eyes eager. "Okay! Let's go!"

"Nico doesn't want you to go, this time," Uta repeated. "This ghoul is a cannibal. And since I haven't had time to scope him out before, it'd might end up being fairly nasty." He sighed. "I hope it's something exciting. I'm growing bored of playing peacemaker. Besides, you're eating."

"Pleeeeeaaaassseee, Uta?" Hide asked, with a grin showing off bloodstained teeth. "I can finish my snack when we get back home!"

"I'll cover for you if you let me eat the head," Roma piped, with a smile that seemed eerie with the blood that stained her face. "Nico isn't hard to fool. I'll tell him you were up here with me the entire time!"

"That's fine! You can have the head!" Hide agreed, then bounced over to Uta, with his missing-toothed, bloodstained smile. "See, Uta? It'll all work out!"

Uta shrugged. "Alright, that's fine. It's not like you can't take care of yourself-- Nico's just a big worry-wort, spoil-sport."

"You're a poet and you didn't know it," Hide snickered, as he held out a hand to Uta, who accepted it. Hide was long since able to clear the buildings in his own power, and there was really no need for Uta to hold his hand anymore, but it was an old habit that Uta found no need to break. Not yet.

_He grew up too fast anyways._

"Oh, shut up," Uta said, bopping Hide on the back of his head. "You better not tell Itori about this. She's been nagging me to get you to eat more, and if she finds out that I let you leave a meal to come with me, she'll be angry. And she's _scary_ when she's mad."

"I won't tell I-chan," Hide promised, his voice a clear in the night air. "I won't tell Nico-neesan, either, 'cause he'll tell I-chan."

"Good boy," Uta praised, but his running halted when he paused to sniff the air, teetering on the edge of the roof. "Well, I'd say we're here."

Hide raised an eyebrow.

"Y'think?"

"When did you start sassing me so often, hmm?" Uta asked, cheerful despite the gory scene he'd come upon. A ghoul was crouching over the body of another ghoul, and his hands and face were smeared in the foul-smelling blood of his victim. "I didn't raise you like that. It was Itori, wasn't it?"

"It was I-chan. Oh, gee, look at that," Hide commented idly. "Nico-neesan was right. It is a cannibal."

"Nasty things, that," Uta added. "Minor side effects tend to include insanity."

The ghoul-- who looked to be about Uta's age, with strangely silver-colored hair-- looked up with flat eyes.

"Who are you?" He asked, in a surprisingly quiet and deep voice that commanded attention.

"Well, I'm the leader of this ward," Uta said, sounding bored. "You're causing quite a bit of a ruckus, coming into my ward and breaking my rules. You're causing havoc in the feeding grounds and committing cannibalism, both of which are no-no's here."

"Well, everybody tends to frown on cannibalism," Hide pipped. "But that's more of a morals thing. Personally, if it didn't have that rather nasty side-effect of insanity, it wouldn't be an issue."

"You brought... a child... to fight me?"

The incredulous tone was amusing, if a little confusing to Uta.

"I did. Is there something wrong with that?"

An ukaku, dark and flickering, taking the form of two black wings, emerged from the ghoul's back. His eyes flickered, bleeding into kakugan, and he didn't answer Uta right away.

"...I don't want to hurt children. I'll fight you, but not him."

Uta just shrugged, a wild, animalistic grin spreading across his face. He released Hide's hand and stepped off the roof, landing in a pool of the dead ghoul's blood.

"Fine by me. Let's have some fun, hmm, Raven-kun?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

As it turned out, the ghoul was surprisingly strong. Strong enough that every time they fought, Uta settled the dispute quickly, then withdrew. The fights were always explosive and gory, to Hide's utter delight, though after awhile they began to grow dull.

One morning, when the weather was fine, Uta tracked him down. He found Raven on the roof of a tall building, watching Tokyo pass by underneath his feet.

_Birds like high places. It's fitting, isn't it?_

"Yo," Uta called, giving Raven a grin that made his piercings glimmer in the sunlight. "Do you like high places, Raven-kun?"

The young man frowned. "...That's not my name."

Uta shrugged, leaping up the two stories that separated them to sit beside Raven on the rooftop, swinging his legs idly.

"Everyone calls you that because I do." Uta pointed down, far, far below them, beyond a human's eyesight, to point at a black bird. "They come from out of nowhere and search for dead flesh. That fits you perfectly, doesn't it?" Then, although he had already sat down, "Is it okay if I sit beside you?"

Raven never responded, merely giving Uta a shrug that Uta took as a yes.

"...If you hate being called that then suck it up and tell me your name," Uta beamed. "I'm Uta! You are?"

When Raven remained silent, Uta sighed, with a faint smirk playing at his lips. "Geez~ It's not like you're a woman being hit on."

Raven pursed his lips, but eventually muttered something Uta didn't catch all of.

"...Ji?"

_*Uta said 'Ji' as in 'hemorrhoids'._

"Renji!" Raven corrected, startled and mildly offended.

Uta smiled innocently. "Renji-kun, why do you go around being so violent? Killing each other would be fun too, but let's get along! I want to have some friends my own age!"

"...I want to become stronger," Renji said, after a brief moment of silence.

"Why?"

"You... are strong," Renji said, avoiding the question. Uta let him. "Tell me, how did you get so strong?"

Uta shrugged. "I don't know that. What...? Are you on a journey to train yourself, Renji-kun?" He laughed.

"Shut up, don't laugh at me," Renji muttered, but Uta merely smiled.

They fell silent for a moment, and after a moment, Renji asked, "Why did you bring your child to our fights?"

"Oh, Hide?" Uta shrugged. "He can handle himself. He's a little short for six, but he packs a punch."

"Didn't I... scare him?"

Uta laughed. "Scare him? Oh, you're kidding me, right? He's a Clown. Nothing scares him."

_Except disappointing Kanou._

Uta paused, seeing something flash across Renji's face, and he peered closer, intrigued. "You're really afraid you scared him, aren't you?" At Renji's silence, Uta leaned back on his hands, ignoring the uneven concrete that dug at his hands. "I'll prove that he isn't. What's say you come meet him, hmm?"

"I... don't know," Renji muttered. "I'm not very good with children."

"You seem to care quite a lot about them," Uta said, amused. "So I'm sure that's not true. In fact, I'd say that you have prior experience with them, hmm...?"

Renji turned his eyes to the stars. Uta let him have his silence-- he had already guessed that Renji wouldn't answer his proddings. But, to his surprise, after a long period of silence, Renji did answer him.

"You aren't wrong..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of the time multiple prompts won't be answered at once, but occasionally, they will. The last two prompts weren't really answered, and they'll probably make an appearance later...


	2. Act 2

**_"The Whack-A-Mole Operation./Eto mentions that Hide was sort of like a brother to her - Eto and Hide throughout the years pls."_ **

 

 

When Hide was six years old, he was a self-sufficient, well-mannered child. He had perfect manners when in public and the situation required it, lied flawlessly, could come up with an airtight backstory on the spot, had excellent control of his kagune and kakugan, fought with strength that fully grown ghouls of moderate rank found overwhelming, and took after his adopted parents in terms of hobbies-- he delighted in violence, bloodshed, and entertainment.

But he was still just a child, and when it came down to it, Itori and Uta wanted to protect him from things that he couldn't handle. Like, per say, drunken couples in Helter Skelter that got a _little_ too touchy-feely, or some of the worse language occasionally used, or some of the locations of Uta's tattoos and piercings. Most of the time, they failed, but one thing they had never failed at was never letting him near situations when things got too dangerous-- specifically, when the CCG's Reaper, was involved.

Unfortunately, the situation had grown serious enough that Hide had been warned to never hunt alone, and because of that, he was given permission to sit in and listen to the conversation between a few members of Uta's gang, Uta, Itori, and Yomo. His eyes were dark and serious, the always-playful facade gone, replaced with the a sharp intelligence that was unmatched.

Uta was eating a body part _(Hide didn't want to know what it was)_  when he spoke.

"There were six injured people on our side..." Uta frowned a little at the recollection of the recent scuffle. "Seems like they'll be throwing more Doves at us steadily... I wonder if they're going to try crushing the Fourth Ward..."

"I-chan, just how strong _are_  these investigators?" Hide asked, frowning as well. "We've never had a problem dealing with lots of investigators before. We just kill 'em-- why won't that work now?"

"Taking on a large amount of investigators isn't the problem," Uta answered. "The thing that's worrisome is the group leader that's commanding those guys. Actually, almost all of our casualties were that guy's fault."

Hide's eyes narrowed. "The Reaper?"

"...Arima," Yomo spoke up, and Uta blinked, surprised. "...He's an Associate Special Class Investigator."

"Ohh~ He's the second rank from the top, huh? Even though he's so young, he's already such an important person," Itori commented.

Uta grinned. "You know 'im?"

"Uta," Yomo said, serious. "I'll also lend you a hand. Arima... I'm going to kill that guy."

Uta's smile showed off his latest lip rings, handmade and brand-new, made from the steel of a dead Dove's quinque. "It's pretty rare for you to show eagerness, Renji-kun. So you're interested in him, huh? ...Why?"

Yomo was silent, looking away.

"Going with your forte-- refusing to explain, again?" Uta studied his stony friend for a moment longer before he shrugged. "Well, that doesn't really matter."

"U-chan's right, Ren-chan," Itori said cheerfully. "You're information might be helpful later. We don't really need you're personal motives. We _do,_  however, need to start planning. Because we aren't just going to take this attack laying down, now, are we?" She smiled, a shark-like grin. "After all, this may be the most entertaining thing since Ren-chan came along. We aren't going to pass up a chance like this, now, are we~?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

The day of the raid they would conduct on the Doves, Hide stood in his handmade costume and mask, peering down from the very top of a cellphone tower at the group of white-coated men that paced below him, patrolling the run-down park that had become a suicide hot-spot in recent years, and therefore a common ghoul hangout. He was a bit disappointed-- he'd rather liked that park, before the Doves had came around and ruined it.

"Renji-kun," Uta called, tossing Yomo a black shape that the silver-haired male had no trouble catching. Hide watched Yomo study it for a moment-- it was a black mask, fashioned like a raven's beak.

"...Did you make this? How skillful..."

"I've liked making things since a long time ago," Uta admitted earnestly, pulling up the black neck of his long black overcoat. It covered his mouth completely, and concealed a part of his nose.

"All of the people in the Fourth Ward have masks made by Uta-san," One of Uta's subordinates chimed.

"If I ever quit being the leader of the Fourth Ward, I'd like to open a store like this eventually, I guess?"

"Eh?" The subordinate asked, dismayed. "Please don't quit...!"

"But, that'd be nice-- a mask shop," Yomo murmured.

Uta just smiled, barely visible behind his coat. "Well then, shall we go~?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Just how many Fourth Ward ghouls are there...?" One of the Doves was complaining, as Hide landed quietly on the concrete ledge beneath the bridge, just above the pool where the Doves were patrolling.

"If we don't bring this to a close quickly then our casualties are going to increase too," Another commented unhappily.

Uta, hands in his pockets, called out cheerily from his perch, "Good evening. Sorry that you're in the middle of working, but please die."

The Doves faces paled, to Hide's amusement.

"Masks... they're ghouls...?!"

Silver cases hit the ground with clatters and quinque were drawn as Hide, with the eagerness only a child could muster, took a running leap off the concrete ledge and landed on top of one of the investigators with a bone-snapping _crunch!_

Not for him, of course. For the poor soul he'd landed on, who's legs were twisted in an unnatural way. A bone was jutting out of the skin, bloody and surrounded by torn flesh.

"So they were waiting for a time when Squad Leader Arima wasn't around, huh...!?" The Dove that spoke was backing away, wielding his halberd-like quinque with a fierce precision. "They're taking us lightly...! It's No-Face-- _target their boss!"_

Uta laughed. "Ahah, am I a celebrity?"

The fight rapidly turned in their favor, but Hide didn't expect anything else-- he and Uta were Clowns, after all, and those who of Uta's gang were also moderately strong. Yomo was strong in his own right-- he could match Uta's strength easily.

"A child?" One of the Doves seemed to _sneer_ the word, as he and three of his comrades encircled Hide. "The Fourth Ward ghouls must be getting pretty desperate, if they're throwing _children_ at us."

Hide was, admittedly, irritated at this comment. He feigned terror, putting his hands to the cheeks of his mask in mock-fear.

"Oh no! A big, scary Dove!" Hide snorted, letting the facade drop. "What's up with you? Too afraid to face little ol' me, _a child,_ on you're own?"

Hide's taunt served it's purpose, and the Dove's anger flared. He charged Hide, thrusting the sword-like quinque at Hide's head.

Hide ducked and dodged, darting forward to rip a hole in the man's stomach with his fist before kicking high and knocking the quinque from his hands. The man stumbled back, staring at his internal organs, which were now spilling out of his body.

Hide snorted again at the terror on the Dove's faces-- he was still unknown _(nobody ever lived after he attacked them, so there were no witnesses)_  as a ghoul, but that wasn't too terribly unusual. Until he made his big debut and brought himself to the Doves attention, it was rather fun to be unknown-- nobody ever came into a fight expecting a child to have such power.

The remaining two Doves ganged up on him, and Hide had his fun with dodging and inflicting minor injuries on the Doves with his chimera kagune, toying with them for a short period of time while he observed Uta's fight.

Uta was almost immediately intercepted by a plain-looking _(boring, Hide thought)_  man with a blank expression and monotonous moves-- as if he was a robot.

Uta echoed his sentiments.

"Yeah, you're skills aren't bad," Uta approached, ducking under a swing of the Dove's quinque. "But they're a little  _monotonous,"_  He informed, reaching out a hand to grab the Dove's head and end the fight--

\--and he had to duck backwards, to avoid a crackling bolt of electricity.

Hide did a double-take, and almost got his head speared by one of the remaining Doves. Without thinking, he snatched the quinque _(it hurt his hands, and the blade cut his palms a little, but Hide didn't do anything more than wince)_  and bent it, twisting it into an unusable pretzel of metal. He swung the bent metal and hit the Dove in the head with his own weapon, and his head snapped backwards unnaturally. His body fell, and as it did, Hide swept his foot out and snapped the second Dove's leg, smashing his neck with his other foot with the speed worthy of his ukaku kagune.

The Doves dead, Hide focused his whole attention on the man who stood between the Dove Uta had been fighting and Uta.

His hair was a strange dark blue, a navy-esque color, and he wore the Dove's trademark white coat. His face was devoid of any and all expression, and his glasses seemed to glint coldly in the moonlight. His quinque case was black and decorated with gold, and his quinque seemed to emit a terrifying aura-- but not nearly as terrifying as the aura the man emitted himself.

"Ten... Twenty..." The man paused, and his eyes narrowed in an idle way. "Twenty-Five people, huh?"

_"Squad Leader Arima!"_

As if the Doves joy-ridden call wasn't enough, Hide had already come to that conclusion. Arima Kishou, the Associate Special Class Investigator, the CCG's undefeated investigator, the Reaper.

"He's here," Uta remarked, and Hide was frozen stiff, fear freezing him like a snake's paralyzing venom.

_This wasn't in the plan. We waited for a day when he wouldn't be around...!_

Yomo's entire aura seemed to change-- he got more violent, and his ukaku seemed to explode from his back.

"Hirako, you're in the way," Arima instructed the boring man. "You're on standby until instructed."

The plain-featured man shrugged and stepped back. "Okay."

Yomo's eyes seemed to glow with his fury, and as Arima's attention was occupied by the furious ghoul, Uta took the opportunity to suddenly appear by Hide's side, his hand firm on Hide's trembling shoulder.

Uta's mask brushed past his ear, and he whispered the single word with such urgency and seriousness that Hide didn't question it, for once. His mind was totally and completely consumed by fear, and the single word seemed to ring through his transfixed mind like an unquestionable command.

_"Run."_

Hide did.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Arima's sharp eyes did not miss the small ghoul _(a child)_  dressed in garishly neon-colored clothes and wearing a mask that was an image of a grinning clown.

_A child is a Clown? Hmm..._

"Hirako. Follow that ghoul. Exterminate it."

There was a flurry of ukaku shards that were illuminated and flickered with lightning, dauntingly powerful, unleashed from the ghoul with the Raven mask.

Arima didn't flinch. plunging IXA into the ground and watching as it morphed into a shield.

Hirako nodded, also unfazed by the attack.

"Yes, Arima-san."

The other ghoul _(No-Face, if Arima's recollection was correct)_  was in front of Hirako in an instant.

"Did you forget who your opponent was, Dove?" No-Face gave a disappointed hum. "That's not very nice, you know."

But Arima wasn't a fool, and he knew No-Face, the cunning Clown, wasn't one either. The Clown and his gang were up against a force they couldn't beat.

_So he's simply buying time, then...? Clever. He's trying to give the child time to escape. Someone important to him, then?_

The sound of helicopter blades above them made Arima's lips twitch once, in a cold smile that disappeared the instant it appeared.

_It's useless._

"Track the ghoul that escaped," Arima ordered, and his earpiece crackled with static in response. "It's a child. Neon clothing, a Clown mask. Hair color believed to be orange-brown and eye color unknown. RC Cell Type, unknown. Fleeing south-west."

_"On it,"_  the helicopter pilot responded, and the searchlight came on in a brilliant flash of white light.

_The ghoul won't live much longer. There's no use in buying time._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Hide's breathing was ragged, and my legs moved faster than he had thought possible. His lungs burned and his chest heaved, but he didn't think about stopping, because if he stopped he would be dead.

The spotlight that remained on him, unbudging despite all of his attempts to shake it, partially obscured his vision and made his eyes ache, but Hide blinked furiously, trying not to trip as his legs began to burn as well. He was speedy even for an ukaku ghoul, but this was something he couldn't keep up for long, this running.

His mind was paralyzed with fear, his heartbeat thudding in his ears so loud thought was made impossible. The only thing that kept him moving was Uta's voice in his ears, telling him to _run._

So run Hide did, ignoring the salty tears that burned at his eyes. He wasn't a fool-- he couldn't outrun the spotlight and the Doves that were tailing him forever. If he fought, the spotlight would guide the other Doves to his location and they would surround him and he'd be dead. But he couldn't keep running, because eventually the Doves would catch him and kill him, when his legs gave way.

_Dead, dead, dead, I'm going to **die,** I-chan, Uta, somebody, **help me, please--!**_

He saw the grate in the shadows of a building, and with wide eyes, he dove for it. The grate was as light as a feather to his strength, and he closed it with the last burst of lightning speed his desperation had given him. Then he was enclosed in somewhere dark and dank, and the voices of the Doves above him seemed too loud.

"Tch. It went into the sewers." There was an irritated sound. "Well, I'm not going to chase it down there. The Whack-A-Mole operation is going on-- just leave them to finish it off."

Hide didn't know what a Whack-A-Mole operation was, but he exhaled in relief when he realized that _they weren't going to follow him,_ and then he was bawling, because he was _safe,_ safe and sound, and he didn't have to _run anymore--_

\--and then he was encased in the light of a flashlight's beam, and there was a woman with a short blonde bob peering down at him. Her eyes were purple and as cold as ice, and his blood seemed to freeze in his veins.

She wore a white coat and carried a quinque.

_A Dove._

_"Run."_

With Uta's voice in his ears, he took off running again, stumbling over the cracked concrete. He stayed ahead of the woman _(there were more Doves behind her, a whole group)_  and eventually Hide managed to even pull far enough ahead that he lost sight of them-- but not their footsteps, which he could still hear. So he didn't slow down at all, his feet pounding against the concrete, as he egged himself to _run faster--_

\--and he ran _(literally)_ into someone.

As he pulled back, blinking away his salty tears, he saw a young girl with a short bob of green hair and similarly-colored eyes, dressed in a strangely tattered maroon cloak. She was wounded, a nasty-looking tear in her upper arm, and Hide's breathing eased as he realized that she wasn't a Dove-- she had a kakugan in her right eye.

_Only_  one kakugan.

But he didn't question it, didn't have time, because the girl's eyes widened and she stood up, cursing.

"Are there _more_ Doves coming from there?" She hissed, and Hide nodded.

"There too?" He asked quietly, ignoring the way his voice quavered. When she nodded, his mind flew into overdrive, thinking of a way, _any way,_ to get him _(them)_  out of the predicament alive.

"We'll fight," He whispered. "You guard my back and I'll guard yours."

"We don't have a choice," The girl agreed, and a kagune that looked like a koukaku crept down to cover her arm.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The Doves were all heavily wounded, and in the end, the two managed to escape into a darker, deeper tunnel, where they were safe.

_(For now.)_

Hide was still crying, little sniffles, and the girl's eyes were shiny and teary. The pain was bearable _(it hurt)_ , but Hide was crying because he was still _frozen with terror,_ and he suspected the girl was too. Hide had taken off his mask as soon as they were sitting, propped against the dirty tunnel wall.

The silence was deafening, and he spoke, eventually.

"I-- I'm Hideyoshi," He hiccuped. "Call me H-Hide."

The girl nodded, her hand pressed to the bloody tear in her shoulder. "I-- I'm Eto."

Neither of them gave last names, and neither of them asked for one.

"Where am I?" Hide asked, holding a hand to the bleeding wound on his leg. He elaborated before she could ask. "I-- I escaped into the sewer. I came from the Fourth Ward-- I was getting chased by Doves. Then I ran into that other group of them, and..."

_And then you,_ he didn't say, but Eto figured.

She laughed bitterly. "The Twenty-Fourth Ward. Welcome to hell."

Hide swallowed around a painfully dry throat. "Why are you here?"

Eto shrugged, then winced when doing so jostled her arm.

"I live down here with my-- my caretaker, Noroi. The Whack-A-Mole operations happen a lot-- that's what those Doves were doing-- but Noroi's always with me when they raid." She sniffled. "He-- He and I got separated when the Doves raided our latest sleeping place."

Hide was quiet for a moment, then he said, "...I was with one of my caretakers, Uta, when we attacked some Doves. There's been a lotta them in the Fourth Ward lately, and we needed to bring down the numbers. Their leader, Arima, is insanely strong-- I was only allowed to go because he wasn't supposed to be there. But he showed up, and-- and Uta told me to run, but the Doves had a _helicopter_  and they _chased me--_ and-- and--"

" 's okay," Eto mumbled. "I get it." She pressed her hand tighter to her wound. "...I'm nine. Almost ten, though."

Hide was perfectly fine with the change in conversation.

"I'm six. And a half, though."

Eto gave him a strained smile that seemed to be forced-- but it was a _smile,_ nonetheless.

"You're funny."

Hide did his best to smile too. "I've been told."

They were quiet for awhile longer, then Hide said, "We're gonna bleed out. That cut on your shoulder needs treated, and so does my leg."

"Not like we've got anything to treat 'em with," Eto murmured. "We just gotta wait 'till our regeneration kicks in enough for us to move."

Hide reached a hand down to his pant leg and tore the fabric. Taking the strip in his hand, he scooted over to Eto.

"Lift up your cloak around your arm. I gotta see the wound and figure out of I have'ta do a tourniquet."

Eto hesitated, then did as she was asked. Hide examined the wound for a moment, then he said, "I'm not going to do a tourniquet. I'm just gonna bind it."

Eto said nothing as he wrapped the wound carefully, then proceeded to do the same with his leg. The process was slow _(his hands were shaking, trembling so badly that he could barely tie knots)_  and tiring, but when it was finished, and the worst of their wounds bound, he sat back with his shoulder brushing her good one. The contact was reassuring.

There was deafening silence again, until Hide let out a faintly hysterical laugh.

"We're gonna die of blood-loss before our regeneration kicks in enough to close our wounds. Or the Doves'll find us before we can move." He sighed, and Eto didn't miss the shimmering, clear tears that leaked from his mismatched eyes. "Either way, we're gonna die."

Eto swiped at her own eyes miserably.

"I know. 'least we won't die alone, though." After a moment, she let out a shaky laugh. "You aren't a bad person to die with, at least. I'm glad I met you, Hide."

She hadn't used honorifics, but Hide couldn't bring himself to care.

_If we're going to die anyways, it doesn't matter._

"I'm glad I met you too, Eto," Hide agreed.

They sat in silence, leaning against the dirty wall and each other's shoulders for support, both ignoring the shaky crying of the other. The tunnel was dark and dank, and it seemed to leech the warmth from their bodies.

And then the flashlights swung into view, and a set of Doves, definitely not the one's they'd injured earlier, emerged into the tunnel.

"It's just like First Class Mado said-- they came this way!" The leader declared.

Hide didn't think he'd ever been so scared. Eto's hand found his, and they were both shaking, and his vision was blurry from blood-loss and tears.

_He didn't want to die. She didn't either._

And then the light of the flashlights were blocked by two shapes, and Uta and Itori stood in front of the two half-ghoul children, as firm and steady as walls.

Itori smiled at them reassuringly, lifting her mask just enough so that they could see it.

"Don't worry, Kiddo. We'll take care of the Doves. There's nothing to worry about now-- so just rest."

There was the breaking of glass, and the flashlight's beam flickered out, plunging the group into darkness.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Hide awoke to the feeling of being rocked. He cracked an eye open _(it was sticky with salt, from his tears)_  and found himself to be dangling from Itori's back.

"You awake, Kiddo?" Itori asked, as they ran across rooftops lit by the light of the stars and the moon. "It's okay now. We got you."

"I-chan...?" Hide asked. His voice was horse. "Where... where are we?"

"Almost home, now. We'll get you some food and band-aids when we get there, and you'll be a-okay then," Itori promised.

"Where-- Where's Eto?" Hide asked, swallowing against his painfully dry throat.

"You're friend, right?" Itori asked. She lifted a hand from where it had been holding one of Hide up on her back to point beside them, where Uta was matching her pace easily. On his back was a maroon-clothed shape that seemed too small. "Uta's got her. She's sleeping too, but she's okay. We'll get her some food and bandages when we get home, too."

"It's okay," Uta said, and the two words meant so much.

Hide made a noise of assent, laying his head back on Itori's shoulder and closing his eyes.

_It's okay._

He fell asleep again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Hide woke up, there was the lingering taste of blood in his mouth and his wounds were gone. He was mildly surprised to find Eto sitting at his dining room table in a set of clothes that were definitely his-- despite her being almost a whole four years older than he was, she was just about his height and weight, and the clothes fit rather well. It was certainly an improvement from the tattered maroon cloak.

"Morning," Hide mumbled, and drew the attention of the ghouls gathered. Eto sat down what she was holding _(it was a glass full of-- was that soda?)_  and waved at him.

"Morning," It was definitely a can of soda, and Hide was more than confused. "What're you looking so confused about?"

"She's like you are, Kiddo," Itori said cheerfully, sipping on coffee. "How she got that way, she doesn't know."

"By that, I mean she wasn't made like you were," Uta elaborated. "She was born that way, so it seems."

"Do you have two kagune too?" Hide asked curiously, sliding into the chair next to Eto and accepting a can of soda of his own. "Is that a one-eye thing?"

"No. I've got an ukaku, but no others," Eto said, and Hide frowned.

"You had a koukaku last night."

"It was my ukaku. I can change it's shape."

"Wow! That's pretty neat," Hide said, bright-eyed, with an eagerness that surprised Eto. "But I guess the dual kagune isn't a one-eye thing after all... hmm... I wonder why I've got it, then?"

"You're just special," Uta said vaguely, waving a hand dismissively.

Eto snorted. "Special in the head?"

"That's _mean,_  Eto!" Hide stuck his tongue out at her, and she laughed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Eto left, and Uta escorted her back to the Twenty-Fourth Ward. They offered to let her stay, but she had insisted.

"I've got to find Noroi," She said firmly. "He must be worried about me."

So they told her she was welcome anytime, and she politely thanked them, promising to return soon. Uta had patched up her cloak, to her delight, and they told her to keep the clothes-- although she did make a snarky comment about Hide's fashion sense that was meant in good humor, and he took it as such, making an equally snarky, but also meant in good humor, comment about the floppy ears on her cloak.

Neither of them mentioned what had gone on in the sewers.

Neither of them forgot.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Hide was afraid she wouldn't, but Eto kept her promise._


	3. Act 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **_"Is the Witch's Servant costume and Kaneki's cape having an Aogiri symbol on it because Uta totally volunteered to be on costume committee for that school play? In general, Uta and Itori and the other Clowns, (because Kanou probably wouldn't) showing up for school events and inserting themselves into Hide's human life because they're daring assholes."_ **
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> Also, **_"When Hide finally opened his eyes and saw Kanou for who he really was."_ **

Uta and Itori weren't like the other parents.

"...Nagachika-san? You want to be in charge of... the costume committee?" The mother was asking, incredulous.

"Oh yes," Uta said cheerily. "And just Uta's fine. No need to be so formal." He tilted his head to the side, smiling brightly in a way that made his piercings jingle against each other. "Is there something wrong with that?"

"There's nothing wrong with it," The PTA board president was quick to assure. "It's just... we rarely get fathers in here, and most of the time they volunteer for things like... carpooling. Not... costume-making."

"Oh, I see," Uta nodded. "Well, I make masks, as a profession. And I sew Hide's clothes when he tears them. I've got a lot of practice." He smiled. "Hide tends to get into scuffles every now and then, more so when he was younger."

_Scuffles-- ha, more like fights with fully grown ghouls, every other day._

"Ah. I see," The mother said, offering him an uneasy smile. "Well, you're welcomed to take up the costumes, then. There weren't any volunteers for it, though-- we're a bit short-staffed this year, so we'll have to ask around again for some more volunteers."

Itori waved her hand. "That's not necessary. I'll take the scenery and I've got a friend who can help out with props."

"Oh, Nagachika-san, we couldn't let you--"

"Itori's fine," She assured cheerily. "Really, though, we've got a lot of friends who would be willing to help out-- don't we, U-chan?"

"That we do, Itori," Uta said, and Itori beamed.

"See? Really, it isn't a problem at all!"

"W-Well... if you insist," The mother that was the PTA board president gave, with poorly concealed relief in her voice.

 

* * *

 

Whatever the PTA board had been expecting, it certainly wasn't this.

Itori was standing on the stage, ordering insanely large and muscled men _(they were from Uta's gang, but the two conveniently didn't mention that)_ around while they cut cardboard to make the backdrops. Uta was sitting on the auditorium floor, a sewing machine propped on a collapsible plastic table and rolls of different colored fabrics strewn about. A man in lipstick and high-heels was directing the painting of the scenery, and he gave her a wave and a smile as she passed.

"What is... all of this?" She asked, in a strained and baffled voice.

Uta, with sewing pins held in his mouth, called out muffledly, "Our friends!"

The PTA mother almost had a heart attack.

"Dear god-- _is that a child?"_

Uta followed her gaze to where a young girl was hanging from the catwalk by a rope that was tied around her waist. She was attaching the cardboard clouds to ropes and pulleys.

"Who, her? No, that's Roma. She's just short."

"What-- What is she _doing?_ Oh my god, let me call 199--"

"There's no need for that," Itori assured her. "Roma does stuff like this all the time. She's like an unprofessional stunt-woman."

The woman didn't look any more assured, but she reluctantly put her phone down.

"If--If you're sure..."

"We are," Uta said, plucking one of the pins from his mouth and studying the fabric. "But that's besides the point. I need to fit the last few actors for their costumes-- and the lead still hasn't come in yet. In fact, I'm not even sure who plays the lead. Can you send him in? And send Hide in, while you're at it?"

With a nod, she left and a while later, Hide appeared with Kaneki in tow.

"Uta?" He asked, baffled. "What is everyone doing here?"

Uta smiled at him, mouth resembling a pincushion.

"To help out, of course!"

 

* * *

 

"Look!" Uta declared, showing off the costume, a few days before the play was set to begin. "Isn't it awesome?"

Hide stared blankly at the costume for a moment, unsure what to say.

"...Uta. The symbol on the cape... what is it?"

Uta blinked. "Well, it's a phoenix. Duh."

Hide gritted his teeth and sighed.

"You put _the symbol Eto uses on her terrorists uniforms_ on Kaneki's costume?"

"It seemed like a good idea," Uta shrugged. "I mean, we've already got you representing the Clowns onstage-- so why not have someone to represent Eto's group too? It seemed fair."

 _"Fair,"_ Hide repeated. "You put _my plaything_ in Eto's terrorist uniform, to represent them? _At our school play?"_

"That's about right," Uta smiled. "It's got a nice meaning behind it, don't you think? _Heaven's favor, virtue and grace, luck and happiness."_

"I don't really care what it symbolizes, but the meanings don't really fit Kaneki," Hide muttered. "What I want to know is _why_ you put it on his cloak?"

Uta shrugged. "I don't know. Like I said, it's got a nice meaning to it, and it seemed like a good idea at the time."

Hide sighed. "Well, it's not like any of the Doves will get the jibe, I guess." He smiled, a little. "It's one way to get the last laugh, I suppose."

 

* * *

 

"So, U-chan," Itori announced, plopping the coffee cup down in front of him, "spill. What's the _real_ reason you sewed a phoenix on the kid's costume?"

Uta sighed.

"You know as well as I do that one day Hide's going to regret lying to Kaneki-kun and manipulating him like he is. He thinks that the boy is just his plaything, but he's not."

"Kaneki-kun is Hide's best friend," Itori agreed.

"Exactly," Uta said, sipping from the cup and ignoring the scalding feeling the hot coffee gave his mouth.

Itori sighed. "So you decided to give him a little blessing of your own, huh? You big softie." She paused, swirling the dark liquid in her cup. "But... you aren't wrong. He'll need all the blessings he can get."

 

* * *

 

Hide had no trouble slipping into a role-- that much was clear. But what surprised Uta was the fact that Kaneki had no trouble falling into his role, either. He radiated confidence onstage, bold and bright under the spotlight, his voice loud and clear.

The audience was packed. Uta and Itori had invited _(dragged)_ everyone, and the auditorium was full of gang members, the ghouls that served as staff from Helter Skelter, ghouls from the Fourth Ward, ghouls from the Fourteenth Ward, some of Itori's regulars, and some of Uta's. Yomo had brought along his friends _(co-workers might have been more adequate)_ from Anteiku-- Uta was mildly surprised by the two hot-headed people that had formerly been the Black Dog and the Devil Ape. Eto had tagged along, never having seen a play before, and her thirteen-year-old eyes were bright as she watched the performance. Amidst all of the parents and family members in their nice work clothes, with their normal _(boring)_ haircuts and their normal _(boring)_ features, the ghouls were certainly an odd bunch, with all of their scars, tattoos, piercings, and clothes that wouldn't be suited for work environments-- like Itori's very revealing dress that didn't leave much to the imagination, or Uta's low-cut, sleeveless shirt that showed off a wide variety of tattoos.

But Hide had been delighted that they'd all come, and that was the important thing.

When Hide made his appearance, all confidence and ease, Uta saw through him, as his eyes scanned the crowd. He was looking at everyone, and unlike the other children onstage, Hide could see everyone's faces when he looked into the crowd, with his ghoulish eyesight.

Uta watched him scan the audience, and saw his eyes light up when he saw everyone seated in a group...

...and he saw the utter sadness and disappointment, the horrible hurt, when he saw the only empty seat in the group. The one that Hide had insisted be saved, and Uta had, with a sinking heart.

The one meant for the man who would never come to such events. For the man that Hide wanted desperately to please, to make proud.

_The man who would never be satisfied, or pleased, or proud. The man who would always want **more,** always want Hide to be **better,** when there was nothing wrong with him to start._

For Kanou.

 

* * *

 

Eto spent the night, crashing on the couch of Uta's loft. At least, she pretended to sleep.

When Hide got up in the middle of the night to get water, she pounced.

Literally-- he dropped his cup in surprise, and she saved it from hitting the ground by the grace of her lightning quick reflexes.

 _"Eto?_ What are you--"

 _"Shh,"_ Eto whispered, and she dragged him to the roof. He complied, though he accidentally left his water on the counter. When they were outside, she sat him down on the roof and put her hands on her hips, giving him a stern look. Which was normally amusing, since he was barely eight and was the same height as her-- in fact, he was almost taller.

"Okay. Spill."

"Spill what?" Hide asked innocently, but his tone was off, and Eto had known him for long enough to know that it certainly wasn't the case.

_Has it really been four years since I met the crying little kid in the Twenty-Fourth Ward?  
_

For a very brief moment, she wonders why she had stuck around for so long when she didn't have any plans to try and manipulate Hide to do her bidding. Perhaps it had been the near-death experience they had shared, but it had always been rather open between the two-- they'd been confidants about dark desires and tips for lying, they'd sparred together, they'd hunted together.

_It's because he's like a little brother._

Maybe it was because she knew that he was too much like her for Eto to manipulate-- and not just in species. He could see the feelings and desires of people just as well as she could, and he also used that talent to exploit victims and pawns.

"You know what. What's been bothering you, huh? You've been moping around since the play."

Hide hesitated, and she scoffed at his hesitance.

"Don't lie to me. You know that I'll see through whatever lies you tell."

And Hide did know that, good and well. He huffed a sigh and sat down on the roof's edge, dangling his feet over the edge and watching the sprawling city far below them.

"...it's my dad. Father didn't come to the play. I gave him the invitation and he said that he'd be there, but I know he's busy, and-- and there's probably a perfectly good reason that he's couldn't make it-- and-- and--"

Eto snorted bitterly. "Seems like daddy issues run in the species. Hide, you realize that he's just using you, right?"

She hated the fact that his eyes widened and his lip quivered, like she had just shattered his world. She hated that she made him look like that, but she knew that it had to be said. So she ignored the look on his face _(it was like a kicked puppy, and it was only the second time that she had seen him genuinely look like a child. The first had been the night they had met, when they were both crying in the sewers, staring down death)_ and continued, with harsh truth in her words.

_He may be able to see the feelings and desires of everyone, including me-- but not himself. So I'll show it to him._

"You're his tool, not his child. How many times have Itori and Uta brought you home, almost dead, because you had taken on someone that was stronger than you were, but you pushed yourself too hard anyways and almost kill yourself? Too many times to count, and that's just in the four years that I know about. Now be honest and quit lying to yourself: why did you push yourself that hard, hmm?" Eto dangled her bare feet off the building, wiggling her toes in the cold air. "It's because you want to _please_ him, but deep down you know that you never will-- that you don't matter at all to the shitty guy you call Father. All of this sorrow, for a man that only sees you as a tool?"

_It's better to **hate**. Hate can drive you, hate can fuel your actions, hate will keep you warm through despair-- but sorrow will only drag you down. Sorrow will drown you in despair and chill your bones._

Hide was still frozen, with tears brimming in his eyes that he was fighting to keep back, and Eto sighed, slinging her arm around his shoulders and dragging him closer.

"I won't tell anyone. So just this once, you can cry."

Hide buried his face in her shoulder and wept, and Eto let him.

_You poor little fool, with your soft heart and your desire to be loved. When will you realize that it hurts so much less to **hate?**_

 

* * *

 

 

_Eto never saw him cry again._

 

* * *

Hide took her advice in stride.

When it came to Kanou, he remained courteous and polite, with picture-perfect manners, finishing through the tasks that he had been assigned by his 'Father' with an unmatched meticulousness. At first glance, his change wasn't visible-- he smiled just as warmly and bright, and none of his attitude had changed.

But he had changed.

His conversations with Kanou became like battles in their own right-- all elaborate sentences that concealed carefully hidden barbs and jabs. Hide no longer spend his free time in the laboratories-- he spent them with his human plaything _(friend, Eto thought, but let him have his delusion)_ , or occasionally with her. Sometimes it would be with the short Clown with the spiky red hair and the horrifically circus-themed clothes.

It was one of those days that Hide was spending with her, and he was sitting with his nose in a thick book. A medical textbook, Eto found.

"Why do you still read those?" She asked, dangling her bare feet over the roof's edge. For a brief moment, she wondered how big of a splat someone falling from the roof would make on the pavement. Then she ignored the idea, filing it away for one of her stories. Someday, she'd gather up the courage to bring one of her manuscripts to a publishing company.

Someday, she'd do it.

Hide blinked, like the question surprised him, and Eto rolled her eyes.

"It isn't normal for a boy who's barely eight-and-three-quarters of a year old to read medical textbooks. You should be reading manga or something, now that you're free of your old man's manipulations."

Hide paused for a brief moment longer, like he was pondering his response.

"I suppose it's because I find them interesting and useful. But it's also to hold the fact that I don't _need_ Kanou's help to learn more than he does-- it doesn't matter if he's a doctor. I'll be better than him. I'll be _smarter_ than he is."

Eto smiled.

"Well, I hadn't expected that."

Hide smiled widely, the falsely charming smile of distorted innocence.

"Silly, of course that'd be my reason. I'm a Clown, after all. I always get the last laugh."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DO NOT DO WHAT UTA DID. Holding sewing pins in your mouth could lead to nasty things like accidentally inhaling one of them, which, in turn, lead to collapsed lungs and surgery, or possible death.


	4. Act 4

There was a perfectly plausible explanation for me to be standing at the doorway of the yakuza's main office, wearing a wig, just a little bit of make-up, a dress, and a set of flats. A book-bag, painfully pink and bright, seemed to weigh heavily on my shoulders.

I was going to wipe out the entire ghoul yakuza faction today. I was going to do it, but first, I had to infiltrate. Because it would look extremely suspicious for a twelve-year-old child to go waltzing down the street dressed in a neon-colored clown get-up, and wearing a mask. Because even if it was just considered an old wives tale that masks meant ghouls, it was a huge tip-off to any CCG in the area-- and there had been a lot lately, thanks to the yakuza's antics.

Lucky _(or perhaps unlucky)_ for me, Itori specialized in makeovers, so when I needed a plausible guise for my infiltration, she did what she did best and gathered information, finding out that the head of the ghoul faction of the yakuza had a daughter about my age, and that our height and weight were similar, she disguised me well enough to pass as her. Colored contacts and wigs were easy enough to come by, and so were dresses.

I hated it. I would bear with it for the sake of the mission _(they're targeting Father, they want to harm him, so they must die)_  but I wasn't happy about it in the slightest. Girls were a rather strange breed to me, still, and I didn't understand how they could put up with this every day. Dresses were so _impractical_ to fight in, it was downright illogical.

But I put on my best, sunny smile as I emerged into the lobby. One of the yakuza men inside looked surprised.

"Kiyoko-chan! I didn't think you were stopping by today!" He offered me a smile, and I did my best to impersonate a small girl's giggle  _(I'd been practicing)._  "You're Dad is meeting with a big-shot, but you can wait in his office, if you want."

_At least I haven't gone through puberty yet, so my voice hasn't changed._

"Thank you!" I called cheerily, and he lead me to said office. When the door shut, I wasted no time in stripping the backpack from my shoulders and changing my clothes, into the ones Uta had tailored and designed especially for this occasion-- for my debut as Pierrot, the youngest of the Clowns.

I was just slipping the mask on my face when the door opened again, and the head of the ghoul yakuza was standing in front of me, eyes closed and smiling, holding his arms open like he was going to hug me.

"Kiyo--!"

I killed him where he stood, before he had the chance to realize what was happening. A woman behind him _(a secretary?)_ screamed and dropped her file-folders, and my rampage began when I leapt forward, my ukaku unfurling from behind me like a set of wings, and a shard the size of a fist buried itself in her forehead. Brain matter and blood painted the hallway as she fell.

She was dead before she hit the ground, and I was swamped with men five times my size, all aiming for my head on a platter, after I had killed their leader.

But I was ready for them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When everyone was dead, I took stock of my injuries. There was a hole in my leg that was rather nasty-looking, made my an ukaku ghoul, and there was a cut where my shoulder met my neck that was bleeding obscenely. I couldn't feel the fingers of my left hand, and my left arm hung limply-- probably a dislocation. There was another bloody laceration stretching from my collarbone to my waist, deep enough to be worrying.

_But I won, didn't I? I made Father happy, right? He'll be pleased with me, won't he? Did I do well enough?_

The thoughts were invasive in my tired mind, and they caught me off-guard. I hadn't had thoughts like those in years, and that was the way I intended to keep it. I pushed the thoughts out of my mind.

I strode _(it didn't matter if my leg and my arm were alternating between agonizing and numb, because I wouldn't show any pain. Pain was for the weak, and Father had no use for a weak child-- but why did I keep thinking about the old crone? He didn't matter to me at all)_  out the door, and froze. My vision was a little hazy, a little blurry, but I wasn't hallucinating. There were CCG vans blocking the streets off, barricading me from escape, and standing in front of all of them was someone who was undoubtedly the CCG's Reaper. There was no mistaking the white hair that was still faintly navy around the tips, the infamous quinque in his hands that shot lightning, the cold eyes behind the glasses.

_This won't end well._

_(For me or for him? I don't know-- I can't think.)_

Though my blood ran like slushy ice in my veins _(plan, plan, I need a plan, **think damn it** )_ and my heart was beating just a little too fast, I kept my breathing in check and let out a laugh, bright and cheery.

"Well, I didn't expect the infamous Reaper to come greet little ol' me himself! What an honor!" I gave him a mock-bow, deliberately overly dramatic. "I'm Pierrot, of the Clowns! How do you do?"

"You're just a child," Arima stated, which to me seemed absurd to point out. Of course I was a child-- did he think I was just vertically challenged? "They called me in for a child?"

"Sorry 'bout that!" I called, not sorry in the slightest  _(sorry, sorry, sorry)._ My blood was pooling at my feet at an alarming rate, staining the concrete red. "Did I ruin your day off, Reaper?"

"Not for much longer," Arima said simply, and I was staring at his quinque. _(Pretty, so pretty, I never thought death would be pretty **but it is** ) _"You're wounded. Finishing you off won't take long."

_I'm a one-eyed ghoul-- of course death is pretty to me. It's... eerily beautiful, in a way that life never could hope to be._

_So beautifully **tragic.**_

"Well, that's sort of rude," I sniffed. "What happened to, y'know, protecting children? Meanie. Attacking a poor, defenseless, injured little boy like this."

I swayed a little on my feet, internally cursing my blood loss. At this rate, I wouldn't last much longer. If I tried to flee, I wouldn't be able to move fast enough to evade Arima. My vision was just faintly hazy, but I wasn't worried about _dying,_ or anything of the sort. Not because of blood loss, anyways.

Now, Arima was a different matter.

He pointed his quinque at me, and my eyes narrowed, mind racing. This was the quinque that made rumors spread like wildfire about the Reaper, the legendary Narukami. It shot bolts of electricity like lightning, and they would supposedly follow you, track you. Evasion was next to impossible.

_What do I do, what do I do...? I can't evade, but I can't take the blast, either... I'll have to intercept it with something..._

When the quinque's end spun and flickered with light, I leapt up, but found myself off-balanced because of the wound to my right leg, making me unable to put as much force into my jump from that side. But I made it high enough, and with a little bit of effort, I summoned my ukaku again and sent a hail of bolts at the lightning strike. It didn't stop it, not by a long shot, but it diverted it enough that I was able to dodge out of the way. I rolled, hitting the concrete with enough force to make me hiss in pain as the ground shredded my skin and wrenched my good arm painfully. I staggered to my feet, teetering unsteadily--

\--right into the arms of Yomo, who steadied me with firm hands. He was dressed in a long black overcoat and he wore his mask, but he still paused, reaching over to ruffle my hair fondly.

My mind had short-circuted, but I still had enough wits about me to call him by his alias.

"R-Raven?"

"Sorry we're late. We got a held up by the CCG's barricade, but we're here now," Uta said, waving to me from where he had swept in _(had he come from the roof?)_  and kicked Narukami away from Arima while he was at it. Itori-- in a scanty dress that showed off far too much cleavage, smashed a heeled foot down hard enough to bend the quinque and crack the cement around her foot. Arima didn't seem deterred in the slightest, though he looked displeased, holding a hand out to a man with brown hair and plain features.

"Take. Allow me to borrow Yukimura for a moment, please."

"Of course, Arima-san," The man said, passing Arima a case that contained a long sword with a tapered end.

And then I was in Yomo's arms, and Uta and Itori, masked, were standing beside me, on guard.

"It's okay now, Kiddo. We've got you. So go ahead and sleep, okay?"

_Okay,_ I wanted to say, but my eyes were already slipping closed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Itori laid the damp cloth over Hide's forehead and sighed, looking at the bloodstained bandages that bound wounds that wouldn't heal.

"We should call Kanou."

A hand gripped hers, weak and shaking and far too hot. Hide, partially delusional with fever, begged in a raspy voice, "Don't, I-chan, please don't. Father will be disappointed in me."

_He hasn't worried about pleasing Kanou in years. He's more delusional that I thought._

"Kiddo, shh. We're not talking about little wounds here. You've lost too much blood," Itori said, and her tone was low and soothing, her hand cold against his burning one. "It'll be okay. Kanou won't be disappointed at all, because you did wonderfully. You caused so much havoc and chaos-- and you managed to kill every last one of those nasty yakuza fellows!"

"I-chan, Uta, please," He begged, and Itori wondered if he was even aware of his delusional mumbling. "Please, no, don't. I'm fine, I'll be okay, I don't need treatment."

"Hide," Uta prodded, gently. "You're temperature is in the low hundreds. Nothing we do is bringing it down-- not painkillers, not fever-reducing medicines, not even the cool cloths. You throw up anything you drink, and you're dehydrated. This is serious. You're wounds are infected. If you weren't a ghoul, you'd already be--"

_Dead._

"But I _am_ a ghoul," Hide croaked. "I'll be-- I'll be--"

"You _won't_ be fine," Itori scolded. "You're going to _die_ at this rate, Hide."

"So long as my temperature stays below-- below-- one hundred and... seven? Eight?" His eyes were unfocused, and Itori bit the inside of her cheek. "I-- I can't remember...?"

"Hide, you've been like this for three days now," Uta urged. "It's time to call Kanou."

_"No,"_ Hide insisted, with a fierce firmness. "No, no, _please._ Please, I'll be fine, I'll heal, _I promise!"_

"You're plaything called, Kiddo," Itori murmured, not wanting to play the _concerned friend_ card _(because it was already apparent that his plaything was so much **more** )_ but out of other options.

"Ken... called?" Hide asked, painfully hopeful and surprised, as Uta dipped the cloth _(it was already hot again)_ in the tub of ice water before replacing it on Hide's forehead.

_Ken?_

"Kaneki did," Itori confirmed. "He's worried. We told him that you were sick, but he was concerned enough to want to stop by. He said that he was taking notes for you-- you want to get back to him as soon as possible, don't you?"

"I-- I do," Hide's voice was a dry whisper.

"So let us call Kanou," Uta urged. "So you can go back to your friend. It isn't nice to leave him worried like that."

Hide's eyes shut _(they were mismatched in his pain)_  for so long that Itori thought that he might have fallen unconscious again. But he hadn't, and after a long moment in which the only sounds were Hide's ragged breathing, he whispered,

"Call Father."

 

 

* * *

 

 

_My dreams are filled with nothing but pain and a burning heat that seems to sear me from the inside out. I think I dream of I-chan and Uta, but I know I must be mistaken, because they look worried-- and I-chan and Uta are never worried. I think that I also dream of Father, with a displeased expression and a needle and threat, and then the pain gets worse._

_It's only a dream, and I don't need to worry about hiding my pain behind a mask. I let myself scream and shriek in agony as something sharp pierces my flesh repeatedly, sending jagged bolts of pain through me, and the pain gets unbearable. I tried to thrash and fight, anything to stop the unbearable pain, but something is restricting my arms and my legs. I scream and scream until my throat burns, but I feel like I'm on fire anyways, so I scream some more and taste something sweet and spicy at the same time, a wonderfully enticing flavor-- my own blood. It seemed that even in dreams, I have a realistic imagination._

_I'm afraid, when I stop hallucinating the dreams of I-chan and Uta and Father, because then I'm alone in my world of dreams and pain and fire._

_My breathing is rough and ragged, but then I'm not alone in my world of dreams, and a set of eyes the color of grey skies are peering down at me worriedly, and blissfully cool hands are brushing sweat-dampened hair off my face and my burning forehead. One of those cool hands find my own, and the fire dampens and cools._

_The pain gets bearable, and suddenly I'm not afraid anymore._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The next day, I was back in class, with not even a scar to show for my wounds. Father may have been a sadistic old man  _(he hadn't given me a drop of anesthesia, apparently)_ but he was a damn good doctor.

Kaneki looked up from his book with wide eyes as I walked into the classroom, and he smiled.

"Hide!"

"Yo, Kaneki!" I beamed, as brightly as brilliantly as I could. It wasn't hard.

"Are you feeling better?" He asked, anxiously, as I sat down. "You were gone for a long time..."

I flashed him a thumbs-up. "I'm a-okay now! I was just a little sick, 's all."

Kaneki hesitated, then reached into his backpack and presented me with a set of notes. They were all in perfectly neat, easy-to-read script that was easily identified as Kaneki's, and I was surprised at their thickness. Had he taken down notes for me, all three days I'd been gone?

"Here. I-I wanted to make sure that you didn't fall behind-- I mean, I know I can't help much, since I'm not a doctor or anything, but-- but I wanted to help somehow."

I thought of grey eyes and cool hands, and I murmured, "You already did."


	5. Act 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at Engineering Camp (read: summer classes), so I won't be able to do a whole lot with my computer! But this chapter is just before Haise's talk with Amon-- it sheds some light on Haise's, "I intend to die in such a way that I'll be remembered by everyone, fondly, and I'll help give this world a push in the right direction, while I'm at it. But I won't keep Hide waiting."
> 
> I'd say this prompt would have to be, **_"I want you to live."_ **
> 
> Hey, @yuu12riku? Remember that comment in Chapter 41, when you said you'd be waiting for the reverse "I want you to live" and I said "I don't know about reverse, but it'll be in there somewhere"?
> 
> Here it is.

_He's stronger now,_  Haise thought to himself, as he ducked under the barrage of ukaku shards and his quinque struck the awaiting, koukaku-like, hardened wing of the SS~ Rated ghoul "Owl", Takizawa Seidou. The former CCG employee turned one-eyed ghoul, courtesy of Kanou, who seemed to have completely embraced his ghoul nature-- and lost his sanity while he was at it. He was one of the 'Deviant Ghouls', ghouls that refused to accept the rules set by the CCG that allowed them to safely merge with society and continued to hunt down people for food. Also, one that still killed Ghoul Investigators.

Haise and the Quinx Squad  _(or rather, Special Class Sasaki and the Sasaki Squad-- Akira had been transferred to the Arima Squad when she had been promoted to Special Class to fill the void left by one of the members dying)_  had been assigned to take him down. Unfortunately, this case happened to be the first of the brand-new Quinx additions: Aura Shinsanpei, Higemaru Touma, and  Hsiao 'Genie' Ching-Li.

It wasn't that Haise doubted their abilities or potential-- or that he disliked them. He liked them very much, in fact _(Touka had said that he needed to stop adopting children; Haise didn't see the issue-- he was just caring for his subordinates)._ He just wished that they hadn't been assigned an _SS~Ranked ghoul_  for their first mission, especially when they weren't used to using their kagune yet.

Not that they were terrible fighters, or anything. Hsiao was an alumnus of the Sunlit Garden, for exceptionally gifted children, and she was capable of going into hand-to-hand combat with ghouls. Aura was quiet and timid, shy and almost meek, but when it came to combat, his strengths really shone through; he had the strength to rival his aunt's, and the battle instincts to make unconscious decisions that took most Investigators years to acquire-- and even then, some never did. Higemaru had a firm sense of right and wrong, could hold his own in a fight, and when it came down to it, he was fiercely protective of his comrades, willing to make decisions based not on orders but on his own morals and the safety of his teammates.

But against an SS~Ranked ghoul, they were like children with pointed sticks. They didn't land a scratch on the former Investigator, who laughed gleefully throughout the fight and talked about stealing their brain jam.

Haise didn't even want them to make more Quinx. It was only with the recent spike of ghoul attacks _(courtesy of the remainders of Aogiri Tree)_  that Washuu Tsuneyoshi had passed the approval to make a new set of Quinx, nine years after the first set had been made.

"Genie-chan, Aura-kun, Higemaru-kun! Fall back!" Haise snapped, driving his quinque into the ground to block Takizawa's kick. The sheer force drove Haise backwards a few inches, and the blade of his quinque cut into his forearm where he had to brace it to keep Takizawa from overpowering him.

Aura was bleeding from a wound in his side that wouldn't heal and had been hastily patched up, Higemaru was bleeding from multiple cuts but standing guard in front of Aura firmly, and Genie's shoulder had been dislocated _(maybe broken-- or both)_  and her ankle broke in a horrendous way, but still they looked reluctant.

Haise gritted his teeth, severing Takizawa's arm with his kagune, but blanched to see it appear to grow back at an insane speed-- only to pale further when he realized it was _kakuja armor acting as an arm._ Urie covered for him as Takizawa struck out with a barrage of ukaku shards, and reluctantly Saiko _(she was unsuitable for defense)_ fell back as Haise and Urie took up the job of deflecting them from the other members.

"First Class Hsiao, Rank 1 Higemaru, Rank 1 Aura, _this is an order from your superior. Fall back!"_

"Understood," Higemaru affirmed, with a reluctant nod from Genie and a dizzy _(had he already lost that much blood?)_  one from Aura.

Takizawa grinned, his black lips pulled into an eerie smile with red-stained teeth.

_"Haha! You think you'll escape that easy~?"_

And Haise was shoved to the ground, with his legs _(he couldn't **move them--**  had Takizawa hit his Achilles tendon?)_ a mess of bloody slashes and shredded skin. Urie's eyes were wide, and he stared at the hole left on his shoulder _(it hadn't hit anything vital, from the looks of it)_ from being impaled on Takizawa's wing-like kakuja uncomprehendingly. Haise thought that he would heal-- but he was out of commission for the fight.

And Takizawa was moving, faster than any of the new Quinx could move when they weren't wounded, with the same terribly sharp, jagged, wing-like kakuja pointed right at Higemaru's throat, an act that would doubtlessly sever the pink-haired male's head from his body.

So Haise moved, ignoring the pain in his legs _(he's been stabbed through the head twice, had his fingers and toes cut off repeatedly, and those were just among a handful of some of the wounds he could call 'torture'-- this pain was nothing)_  and the slight lag in his movements that told him his Achilles tendon hadn't been healed completely. He moved and put himself between his subordinate and his target, and he took the blow instead.

Everything in his vision went fuzzy when he was stabbed through and through, just below his collarbone, and his breathing was cut off completely. There was only the sickeningly sweet smell of his blood and the blood of his subordinates _(who were okay, and alive, and that was all that mattered)_  as Haise gave a weak cough in a vain effort to _breathe_  again, and he wondered, distantly, if this was how Hide suffered when he had died.

Then the kakuja was wrenched from his chest and Takizawa was on the ground, screaming, but the screams weren't as loud as Haise's heartbeat, which echoed muffledly in his ears. Haise fell, but felt someone grab him and stagger, and he was looking at the faces of his subordinates _(when had he gotten to be on the ground, laying down with his head propped up in Aura's lap?)_  while Higemaru pressed a wad of bloodstained white cloth onto the wound on Haise's chest. But Haise's eyes shifted to where Urie, barely standing and with blood dripping from the wound in his shoulder onto Takizawa's withering form, but with his quinque impaling Takizawa and his wing-like kakuja _(there were two of them, like a set of wings-- like a broken butterfly that had been impaled)_  firmly. With a trembling hand, Urie reached up and clicked the call button on his earpiece, and he croaked, "Associate Special Class Urie, reporting in. Mission accomplished. SS~Ranked Owl has been captured. Requesting immediate backup and medical personnel to..."

Urie proceeded to rattle off their current location, twisting his quinque viciously when Takizawa seemed to be about to retaliate.

But Haise didn't hear him. His eyes were already closed, with his last thought being a faint recollection of a poem he'd once read.

 

_"A dead butterfly is beautiful._

_Its beautiful death itself_

_looked more composed than when it was alive."_

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Haise felt a pair of hands running through his hair, gentle fingers combing through the white strands. Someone was humming, a soft tune that stirred up memories and feelings that took Haise a moment to comprehend. It brought a sense of contentment, warmth, happiness--

\-- _completion, a feeling that he hadn't felt since--_

Haise opened his eyes. He was sitting on the top of a familiar whale in a familiar playground _(he brought Sakura and Ryouta here every Saturday)_ , with the familiar noise of the city a soft constant in the background. The lap his head was resting in, the fingers that were combing through his hair, the voice humming _"I Want It That Way" (it had used to be **his** favorite song-- was it still?)--_

\--they all belonged to Hide, who gave him a bright, sunny smile.

"Yo, Haise. You awake, sleepyhead?"

"Hide," Haise whispered.

And Hide's smile brightened, if it was at all possible. He glowed brighter than the stars, a glimmering light in the night, but Haise was sure that it was just his imagination.

Because surely nobody could glow that brightly.

"I'll take that as a yes." Hide's fingers stilled in his hair, and he sighed. "You haven't changed at all, you know that? Taking the wound like that... Not that I blame you. I would have done the same thing in your situation, but that doesn't mean I like seeing you like that."

"Seeing me...?" Haise's eyes widened. "You mean... you've been watching me?"

" 'course I have been. By the way, I don't approve of your little habit, either," Hide chided.

"It's not like they'll kill me or anything," Haise mumbled sheepishly.

"Doesn't matter. Smoking is bad." Hide sighed. "But that isn't the point."

_(Hide wants to talk about so many things, but he doesn't have the time-- it seems like he never did.)_

Haise was silent for a hesitant moment, then he asked, "Am I... dead?"

Hide hesitated, the smile slipping off his face. "For the moment... yes. But you aren't going to stay that way. Right now, the medics are giving you CPR and restarting your heart, giving you an injection of RC Cells to kick-start your regeneration. They'll succeed."

"How do you know that?" Haise asked. Hide couldn't decipher the emotions in his voice, and a hand worked it's way from Haise's hair to twine with his fingers.

"Because I can see you-- and your body. You aren't like me. You aren't a ghost. You're still alive-- at least, partially." Hide shrugged. "I can't explain it very well. But just trust me, won't you?"

"With everything," Haise responded, automatically but truthfully.

Hide smiled, just a twitch of his lips. "Even after everything I lied to you about?"

"Even so."

"Thank you," Hide said, but he didn't say anything more on the topic. Haise didn't need him too-- the hand that held his own tightening, painfully so, was all the response he needed. "But I promise, they're going to bring you back. You won't be here long."

_Where is 'here'? Why... Why do I have to leave? I don't want you to **leave again!**_

"Don't make that face," Hide chided. "You aren't ready to die yet. You've still got too much to do, you know. The kids still need you." He paused. "And that goes for _all_  of them."

_Sakura, Ryouta... I promised I'd be home to take them to dinner, to celebrate their first test, and their perfect grade... I guess... I lied..._

"Hide... I don't want to leave," Haise croaked. "I... I don't want to leave you! I just got you back-- _I can't lose you again!_ I'm so _lonely_  without you!"

"Lose me?" Hide brushed a thumb under Haise's eyes, wiping away the tears. "You never lost me. I've always been there, silly, even if you couldn't see me. C'mon, don't cry-- what are ya, a little bunny? I'll always _be_  here, waiting for you when it's time for you to come too." He smiled. "But that time isn't now. You aren't going to die now-- look, everything's already starting to fade away for you, isn't it? You need to go soon."

With horror, Haise realized that things _were_  fading away-- he could no longer hear the city noise in the background, or see the stars that had gleamed above him, or see the playground around them. It was just him and Hide, in the dark, lit only by Hide's glow.

His hands tightened around Hide's.

"No, no, _no--_ I'm not ready to go back, I'm not ready to _go back without you!"_  His voice was desperate, and it cracked when he spoke again. "Why? Why can't I stay? _I died!_ I died like you, I gave my life for someone-- _so why can't I just stay dead?_ Everyone, _they don't need me!_ They-- They're all _self-sufficient--!"_

"Even Sakura and Ryouta?" Hide asked, gently. He sighed and wiped away Haise's tears with a ceaseless patience, and he said, "Ken, don't disillusion yourself. You're just spouting nonsense now." Hide smiled, sadly. "Besides, what was that? 'I died like you, I gave my life for someone else'?" Hide sighed. "You know, back then... I was actually wishing that I could live on with you. So I'll say it as many times as you need to hear it: _ **live.** "_

Haise thought that he felt the brush of lips against his own, the ghost of a kiss, as the world broke down into shattered fragments.

_"I love you."_

 

 

* * *

 

Haise opened his eyes slowly. They felt like they'd been closed for a long time.

There was one of those annoying oxygen masks on his face _(but it eased his breathing, made the tightness in his chest lessen)_ , and a heart monitor beeping steadily next to him. An IV dripped a reddish fluid that wasn't blood but RC Cells into his arm, and he ached all over, as if he'd been through the wringer.

His hospital room was full, but his vision was still a little blurry and sense of smell dulled by the reek of hospital _(antiseptic and death)_ , and he couldn't make out too much _(where had his glasses gone?)_. Voices, however, he could make out just fine, muffled and hushed though they may be.

"What if-- What if Mama never wakes up?" The trembling voice was no doubt Sakura's.

"Don't say that!" Ryouta protested, with a wavering, watery tone. "Mama _will_  wake up!"

"Of course he will," Saiko assured them. "He's just resting right now, that's all."

"Sassan needs lots'a rest to get better, so he needs ta sleep for awhile," A voice that took Haise by surprise continued. It was followed by another surprising voice.

"That's right. Sasaki would never leave you. He's stronger than that."

_Shirazu? Mutsuki? They were on a mission with Ui, hunting down Tartara... did they come back early... because of me?_

Haise had to blink a few times to try and clear his vision some more, but he couldn't see anything more than blurs. He reached a hand up and removed his oxygen mask.

"Mucchan's right, I wouldn't ever leave," Haise said, and his voice was croaky and horse, but it was firm.

_(His hand drifted to his chin.)_

Two small blurs were flying at him at dangerous velocity, and Haise brought his arms around the two crying children that had tackled him and now rested on his hospital bed. He laughed  _(he didn't grimace, despite the pain that racked his body on their impact)_  and he pet their hair reassuringly.

"Did you miss me? I'm sorry I didn't make it home in time to take you out for dinner. We'll do it another night, I promise."

Their sobs were the only answer he got, and Haise's smile fell, a little. But he tried vainly to regain it, and he asked, "I want to thank everyone for coming here, but... I can't see everyone? Does anyone know where my glasses are?"

"They were broke during the fight," A voice _(Higemaru?)_  informed him. "Sorry, Sasaki-sensei."

"I brought your spares," Another voice announced, and Haise shifted his arms _(Ryouta was sitting on his IV and it pressed painfully into his arm-- but it was okay, it didn't matter, because Haise wouldn't ever dream of asking him to move)_  to reach out and grab the glasses that had been sat on his lap. With a few blinks to clear his vision, he realized that the second voice belonged to none other than Arima.

"Arima-san? They called you here?"

_They still think I'm a threat? Really? After all these years, I still need monitoring?_

"No. I came because I wanted to," Arima stated, and Haise was taken aback, but his smile became genuine. Arima offered him a paper bag. "I need to return the book I borrowed, after all."

"And it wouldn't be fair for Sakura and Ryouta to leave them at home while we left for the hospital," Akira told him, with a faint smile. "You gave us all quite the scare, you know, when we got the phone call informing us that you had been admitted to the hospital."

"What about Urie?" Haise asked Higemaru, who, aside from a few bandages, appeared to be fine. Although, he did look tired-- understandably. Regeneration, especially for someone so new to being a _(partial)_ ghoul, was probably exhausting and strange. "And Aura-kun? And Genie-chan?"

"I'm over here, Sasaki-san," Genie said quietly. Her arm was in a sling, and her ankle bound in a metal support brace. "Aura-kun was admitted when you were, but he's simply resting-- the doctors didn't even need to preform surgery to stitch his wounds. Urie-san was also admitted; he requested a discharge, but his request was denied, and they have him resting and on an IV drip as well."

Haise exhaled in relief. "Good. Good, oh, that's good. But-- Mucchan, Shiragin, why did you both come back? You were on the Tartara case with Ui-san!"

Mutsuki looked at him like he had asked the most absurd question possible, and Shirazu echoed his look with even more bafflement.

"Why? Sasaki, we came because you were hurt. Maybe even _dying!_ We came because-- because we _care."_

Then the door was swept open, and horde of people came in like a flood-- Hinami, pulling Ayato by his hand, looking like she was close to tears; Touka and Yomo, with Touka holding a cup of coffee from :re that smelled like heaven on earth; a blindingly purple suit and hair that announced Tsukiyama and his equally purple-hued servant, Kanae, trailing behind him reluctantly _(Haise had always gotten the feeling that Kanae didn't like him very much, but he had no idea why, because Kanae seemed to like the twins just fine)_ ; and last but not least, Itori and Uta, complete with a bouquet of flowers.

_(Arima had left the room quietly-- Haise mouthed 'thank you', and Arima gave him a nod.)_

"I thought you were _dying,"_  Touka accused, as she presented him with the coffee cup. "Also, I had to sneak this passed the nurses, so you better be grateful."

"You made Hina cry," Ayato muttered, with a glare, and Haise laughed weakly.

"Sorry, Touka-chan, Hinami-chan. I'm okay." Haise had to shift again to accept the coffee cup, and he noticed distantly that the twins had cried themselves to sleep. With a glance at the clock _(way past their bedtime-- he'd call them out of school tomorrow)_  he decided it was a good thing. "I am, really. I promise."

_(His hand drifted to his chin, but faltered halfway and fell back onto the bed.)_

"We brought something too~!" Itori declared, presenting him with the bouquet. Haise sat the cup between his legs to accept the bouquet, and Uta offered him a smile.

"We figured you'd like the type."

Haise stared at the bouquet for a moment, the blindingly bright colors contrasting sharply against the stark, white hospital room.

_(Yellow and brown, bright colors that made him ache, ones that stirred up memories.)_

_(The first captivating sight of the first person to reach out to him, to be his first friend, the dying sunlight catching his blonde and brown hair and setting it alight, to glow like his smile.)_

_(Long before his memories had come back, he was standing in front of the First Academy, staring at the man who smelled mouthwateringly good with a hint of metallic taint that he knew now to be RC Cell Suppressants. Staring at the head of blonde hair and the darker, brown roots. Staring at the smile like the sun, trying to ignore the feeling of deja vu.)_

_(Blonde and brown hair, messy with bedhead, the first thing he'd see after a nightmare and wake up crying.)_

_(Wiping blood off of a pale chin, staring at the face framed with hair so stained with blood that it was more red than blonde and brown.)_

It was a bouquet of sunflowers.

Haise started crying.

_I won't keep you waiting any longer than I have to, Hide._

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Years later, ghouls attack the park during one of Haise and the Quinx's few days off, when they'd gone out for a night of fun. Haise does the same thing that he had done years before, throwing himself in front of his squad and his children, in front of the civilians, taking the hit instead. This time, it's fatal._

_(His quinque would have sufficed to block the blow.)_

_It's an honorable death. It's one that pushes the world a step closer in the right direction, and it's one that he'll be remembered by everyone, fondly, for._

_Hide is waiting for him, and Hide puts him in a choke hold, telling Haise it was his punishment-- for what, Haise doesn't need an explanation. For dying in such a foolish (unnecessary) way._

_But Haise has no regrets._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go and read Toyu's _After The Last Laugh_ for MAXIMUM FEELS. It's amazing, I promise-- the bit at the end? That's _in reference to After The Last Laugh._
> 
> (Here it is: http://archiveofourown.org/works/7273036)
> 
> Also! The poem mentioned is Death of a Butterfly, by Tian Yuan.

**Author's Note:**

> Most of the time multiple prompts won't be answered at once, but occasionally, they will. The last two prompts weren't really answered, and they'll probably make an appearance later...


End file.
